


Adversaries

by thedevilchicken



Series: Therapy [3]
Category: Batman Begins (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark, Foursome - M/M/M/M, M/M, Mindfuck, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 23:08:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4198551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once a week, every week, just like clockwork, he meets Lex Luthor at lunch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adversaries

**Author's Note:**

> A continuation of the _Therapy_ series, a decade after it began. One more part left until conclusion!

If you give a man enough money he’ll start to believe he can do anything in the world he sets his heart on. Jonathan believes that quite deeply, and so far Lex Luthor has given him absolutely no reason for revision.

The restaurant is never full when they meet. This shouldn’t come as a surprise since Lex _owns_ the restaurant and they do usually meet for lunch at the slightly unsociable hour of 11:30am, but Jonathan always notices just how empty the place really is throughout their meetings. It’s a fairly exclusive place, too – if Jonathan were picking up the tab then his first thought would be that they would have to seriously consider relocating their little chats. But he’s not paying, has never paid, and besides which, neither of them is really _eating_ when they go there, even if they call it lunch. They don’t go there to eat. They go there to talk. Once a week, every week, just like clockwork, they go there to talk.

As is usual, they arrived separately. Lex usually comes in from his office in a rather ostentatious black limousine that isn’t otherwise his usual mode of transportation; what he’s driving nowadays, or for the past three weeks at least, is a silver Ferrari F430 that’s currently sporting an impressive dent in the passenger side door and scratches around one wheel arch that leaves Jonathan with a feeling that were the owner anyone else he’d be having sleepless nights over the sad and sorry state of his favourite toy. Lex, however, is apparently just as reckless with his cars as Bruce used to be and Jonathan really can’t begrudge him that. After all, it’s Bruce’s repeated smashings and crashings and breakings of ludicrously, bewilderingly expensive luxury vehicles that led to their first meeting. And, subsequently, to his first meeting with Lex. Back in in Gotham months ago, in his office at Arkham.

They order their food. It’s the same thing every week – expensive salads that look better than they taste at which they pick idly between sentences. Sometimes there’s wine but not always and not today, just an imported mineral water that’s actually made Jonathan begin to believe that differences between brands of water really do exist. The staff maintain a respectful distance throughout. Jonathan suspects that’s one reason why they come here – the staff’s been instructed _not_ to fawn all over Mr Luthor and his companion the way most would in an attempt to ingratiate themselves, for tips or for anything else. They’re left alone to their conversation at Lex’s favourite table with the view across the square.

And they talk. There’s actually nothing specific that they go there to talk about per se, mostly as all their business is conducted in either Lex’s palatial office or Jonathan’s Lexcorp lab; they go there to the restaurant every Tuesday morning and they talk, they shoot the breeze, and Jonathan’s sure that from the outside it must seem odd for two men quite as busy as the two of them actually are to make time for this. But it doesn’t seem strange to him or to Lex, not at all, not one bit. In fact, he looks forward to their meetings. Lex is a very good actor, he’s discovered, but not good enough to convince him that he doesn’t enjoy it, too.

“So, how’s Bruce?” Lex asks with a smile before taking a casual sip of his water, eyeing Jonathan over the rim of the glass. This is the game they play; Jonathan might call it cat and mouse except that would suggest a dimension to the relationship that does not, in fact, actually exist, would suggest some measure of inferiority on the part of one or the other that neither would accept as truth. There is, of course, a difference in their social and financial status, but here that’s of no real import. It’s a factor left quite purposefully at the door and so they speak, as they do, intellect to intellect. 

“He’s doing quite well,” Jonathan replies, though he knows that Lex knows this already; he knows because Lex rarely asks a question without already knowing the answer, and because he knows that Lex dropped by the apartment last week, four days ago, and saw Bruce for himself while he knew Jonathan would be away at the lab. This only bothers him in the very vaguest of sense because he’s well aware that Bruce and Lex were friends, before, and he even were they not he doesn’t actually expect Lex to adhere to any normal social practice; that extends to the lack of telephone calls to let him know if he’s decided on coming over.

“I’m glad to hear it. How _is_ the new nurse, by the way? I’ve been meaning to ask.”

Jonathan smiles faintly and pushes his glasses a little further up on the bridge of his nose. “He’s excellent,” he says, and that’s perfectly true but that’s not the point of the question and they both know it. What Lex is saying without saying is that he knows, knows that Jonathan doesn’t keep the same nurse for more than a month and that he probably suspects why that is. Jonathan volunteers no further information, doesn’t explain that there’s a new nurse each month because he won’t have them forming attachments, won’t allow Bruce to form an attachment. He says it’s bad for his treatment. That might actually be true but it’s still not the primary motivation for the rule and apparently Lex knows that. Jonathan isn’t exactly concerned. The secrets he wants to keep stay kept, after all.

This is the point of their meetings; each week they come here and they talk and they sit back in their seats with small, amused hints of a smile, entertaining themselves and each other with subtle hints at the secrets they’ve learned. It’s fascinating, Jonathan thinks, how their mutual interest in this has lasted when they do both have such a long history of tiring so quickly of all their diversions. He supposes that it must have something to do with the fact that it’s been awhile since he’s spoken to anyone simultaneously both educated and intelligent in quite the way that Lex is – they’ve lapsed into talk of classics or music or physics or psychology on more than one occasion, between thinly-veiled allusions to each other’s illicit machinations. And the fact that Lex can discover his secrets at all is quite intriguing in itself – perhaps not the ones that require only sufficient funds and a capable lackey thrown in their direction but the personal ones, the insights into his personality. He’s not disturbed by it as he imagined he would be; he’s entertained.

“By the way, how’s Clark?” he asks, and Lex smiles a shade more brightly, taking another sip from his glass.

“Cautiously optimistic about this year’s finals,” Lex replies. Jonathan knows that Lex knows he’s never met Clark Kent. He knows that Lex knows he’s never mentioned him to Jonathan himself. That one should have him asking some interesting questions later in the day about how Jonathan could possibly know Clark Kent, his friend the Met U journalism major.

And so it continues, in a similar vein. This sort of thing is the small stuff, the cheap stuff, peripheral; neither one of them cares that the other knows because they still have their special secrets guarded. Lex doesn’t know what really happened to Bruce. Lex doesn’t know the details of that last night in Gotham. Really, he knows nothing that he shouldn’t, except when that’s entirely unavoidable. He treats it like sport, treats it almost like therapy and Jonathan can’t say analysis is not occurring there on some level. They get in their sessions every week.

“How’s your wrist?” he asks and Lex chuckles as he rubs it; he won’t ask how Jonathan knows it’s injured, won’t ask how he knows it’s a relic of his most recent car troubles, won’t ask because it doesn’t really matter what exactly Jonathan knows about it. Neither of them are so naïve as to think they know everything, and right now they have an alliance. It’s only very slightly uneasy. 

Their food arrives and they pick at it as they talk. They both know that their conversation won’t go too far – even if they know or discover something larger than these petty concerns, they won’t mention it now. Lex won’t because he wants Jonathan’s help; Jonathan won’t because for the moment he stands to lose more than he’d gain. 

But that won’t last and in the end Jonathan has his plans. He’s spent six months of Tuesday mornings here at this table in preparation for it. 

Lex is smart, he thinks; he’ll just have to be smarter.

***

In theory, the apartment is Bruce’s. He lives there with his small, privately-employed medical team and a group of well-trained, fully armed ex-military men with a sophisticated security system to keep him safe, from prying eyes and from himself. 

Alfred was surprisingly easy to persuade of the necessity of the move, distraught as he was in the wake of Dick Grayson’s apparent breakdown. It was actually the inimitable Alfred himself who suggested the apartment in Metropolis, albeit thanks to liberal cuing on Jonathan’s part. After the dust had settled, Alfred had asked Dr Crane to stay on as Bruce’s personal doctor. He’d suggested the move, suggested Bruce might benefit from a change of scenery, suggested that he’d be well compensated for his time and his attention and obviously, although he’d be living in the apartment to oversee Bruce’s care, he would be under no obligation to remain there full-time. 

Jonathan made a show of thinking the offer through. He spun out his deliberations for just shy of a week and then he finally consented; after all, Bruce had never actually been _committed_ as such, and Jonathan himself had, as expected, been cleared of any suggestion of wrongdoing in the matter of the Arkham jailbreak. He spent the following month preparing the apartment for its new resident, taking trips between Gotham and Metropolis every few days or so to finalise the transfer of his personal patients to their new psychiatrists, to oversee Arkham’s repair and transition to its new director, to keep one eye firmly on Bruce Wayne. And then he brought Bruce to Metropolis personally. 

Bruce was having one of his more lucid periods when they arrived but Jonathan still turned off the lights in the bedroom. He remembers how scared Bruce still was then. He’s pleased by how far he’s come since. His hard work has its dividends. 

“Thank you, Jack,” Jonathan says to the current nurse, once he’s stepped into the penthouse and deposited his briefcase by the door. He’s the sixth in as many months and were Jonathan any other man it may have been difficult to keep their names there in his head, considering the parade of different faces with whom he had only a passing acquaintance, fully vetted and signed into airtight contracts of confidentiality. Perhaps none of them know it, can never know it, but should they ever stray from their word or the letter of the contract, Jonathan thinks he might actually kill them. Perhaps, he thinks, he’s developed an unanticipated protective streak. It’s not an entirely unwelcome thought. “How is he today?”

“He’s having a good day,” Jack says. “Will you need me, or…?”

Jonathan won’t need him, tells him so, and so he retires for the evening. The nurse’s quarters are downstairs, on the 27th floor below Bruce’s home there on the 28th, but he won’t return for the rest of the evening; Jack is 24 years old and attached to the Metropolis nightlife, which would make him infinitely simple to control should Jonathan ever feel that he needed to do so, but for the moment Jack is much too occupied with recreational drugs and impressing girls with the view from the window of his temporary living space in the early hours of the morning for Jonathan to have any interest in that direction.

Once the door is locked, he walks through the vast monochrome lounge with its stark white walls and black floors and furniture toward the bedrooms. He finds Bruce running on a treadmill in the gym at the end of the hall, which seems to have been his default position at 8pm each day for the past two months. He’s been getting stronger, working out daily because he has surprisingly little else to occupy his time. Jack the nurse seems to be fairly well-versed in gymnasium equipment safety, which is just as well because Jonathan would have literally only the ideas indicated to him by his common sense. He stops in the doorway, leans against the frame with his arms crossed over his chest, and he watches. 

Bruce is running hard, his breath in rhythm with his footfalls. Six months ago when they moved in he was gaunt, had lost muscle mass that Jonathan wasn’t sure he would ever regain and yet, most fortunately, he has. He’s been getting stronger, not just physically but mentally, day by day and piece by piece, because Jonathan’s seen to that himself. His Lexcorp lab is his perhaps his primary place of employment but Bruce is his work. 

Bruce slows and then steps from the treadmill a few minutes later, towels the back of his neck and turns; to his credit, the flinch at the sight of someone lingering there in the doorway is very well controlled. He recovers well, in a way that would not have been possible just six short months ago when all Bruce could do was rock to himself in the dark of his room back at Arkham, wasting away into nothing at all. Jonathan thinks his pride in his work is justified. 

“How long have you been there?” Bruce asks, trying hard to sound casual and it’s very close, but Jonathan can tell he’s still unsettled even if for all the rest of the world he’d seem perfectly at ease. Bruce will always be unsettled. Even the top-of-the-line security system can’t put him at ease. Jonathan is the one and only person in the world who can ever help him, because he’s made sure of that.

“A couple of minutes,” Jonathan replies. “I didn’t want to interrupt.” Bruce nods, and Jonathan can see him running through his internal list of other appropriate responses. He smiles. That works. He’s coming on in leaps and bounds. 

Bruce is sweaty from his run and peels off his shirt as he stands there, completely unperturbed by the fact that Jonathan’s watching or perhaps he does it _because_ he’s watching and the fact of that ambiguity is another point of pride. Bruce has bulked back up, big and strong and solid like he was on the very first day they met. It’s been a year since then and Jonathan wonders sometimes if Bruce still feels time the way he should and not just as an abstraction, if he really _understand_ that twelve months have passed as well as knowing it; he focuses the occasional session on the question but it’s still difficult to ascertain with any certainty when Jonathan is still so acutely aware that Bruce’s whole world is there in that apartment. They need to change that.

Bruce heads to the door, pauses there by him at the doorway and a look flits across his face that Jonathan understands quite well. He’s been teaching Bruce boundaries, which had until three weeks previous been entirely lacking between the two of them; he’s been coming along marvellously but does have the occasional moment of confusion. Jonathan takes uncharacteristic pity. He reaches up and runs his fingertips through Bruce’s damp hair, leans up to press a brief kiss to the corner of his mouth and finds Bruce is visibly calmed by this. He makes his way down the corridor to his private bathroom, looking back over his shoulder to flash a smile at Jonathan as he goes. It’s a familiar smile, the broad, winning smile from before he was broken. Jonathan’s taught it to him and it wasn’t exactly difficult, considering the fact it was always faked, even then. 

Jonathan changes in his room while Bruce showers, hanging up his suit and slipping into sweats and a tshirt. It took a long time for him to grow accustomed to the feel of the clothes, to adjust to the lack of the suit that he’d always more or less lived in before this, but Bruce seems to enjoy the informality of it and he has no reason to deny him that particular pleasure. He leaves his room, three doors down the hallway from Bruce’s, two doors from the master bedroom that neither of them uses but that they make believe Bruce does, and settles on the couch with a batch of test reports to study. He’s a qualified psychiatrist but aside from his one extremely high-profile patient he’s stopped practicing in that particular area. Lexcorp employs him as a psychopharmacologist. He tells anyone who asks that after Arkham, he never wants to see the inside of another asylum. 

Jonathan played the martyr to a fault and got away scot free. His plan had changed quite markedly, in the car after the serum had begun to act on Gotham’s unsuspecting public, swiftly though not uncalculated; he drove out to Wayne Manor with Bruce there beside him and told Alfred, as they took Bruce inside, that he was sure he’d just seen Dick dressed as Nightwing, screaming outside Arkham. The inmates were escaping. He’d taken Bruce and fled. He was convincing. 

The Gotham PD shot Henri Ducard dead in the uprising. Dick was locked away in Arkham in the aftermath, where he is constantly surveilled. Alfred still lives there alone in Wayne Manor, hoping for the best. And Bruce is now in Jonathan’s expert care, far from it all.

They eat dinner together then stack the dishwasher together in familiarity that Jonathan has to admit sometimes niggles at him in spite of the fact that it is, of course, all measured to the inch. He gives Bruce his medication, washed down with a glass of the overpriced mineral water that Lex seems to like so much. Then they settle down to work. Twenty minutes later, he’s finally convinced. It’s been a long time coming, but Bruce is ready to begin.

“I want you to meet someone,” Jonathan says. 

Bruce raises his brows. “Who?” he asks, and Jonathan can see the suspicion in him, can almost see his pulse quickening in his throat because that’s Bruce’s reaction to everything new, even when he’s managing to rein it in to some extent as he is now. But he’s getting better. He almost doesn’t look scared. He almost looks casual.

“His name’s Clark Kent,” Jonathan says. “I think you’ll like him.”

***

The interview is for Clark’s final project and he’s so intensely grateful for it that he could trip all over himself if he doesn’t watch what he’s doing, even though he’s been pre-warned about Bruce. Jonathan asked him to stay calm. He’s not sure that Clark understands the notion. 

Jonathan is there, of course, at least throughout the start of ordeal. Bruce sits at one end of one of the matched pair of long black leather couches in the lounge and Jonathan sits at the other, his back angled into the corner, his legs crossed at the knee as he watches the two of them interact. Bruce is doing well. He’s convincing. 

Of course, he’s not the only one watching. Lex is there across the room, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over the jacket of his expensive suit and he’s watching Jonathan just as much as he’s watching Bruce and Clark. He looks perfectly at ease, as he always does, but Jonathan knows his interest is piqued beneath the surface; Lex doesn’t understand why Jonathan would do this for Clark. He suspects there’s an ulterior motive and he is, of course, correct. Lex is nothing if not perceptive, which is rather what Jonathan’s plans rest on.

Jonathan coughs. Clark pauses mid-sentence and Jonathan smiles good-naturedly, which is ironically almost entirely against his nature, when Clark and Bruce both look up at him. 

“I apologise, Clark,” he says. “Lex and I have a lunch appointment. If you’ll excuse us…”

Clark sees nothing odd in this, returns Jonathan’s smile and tells him sure, of course, that’s fine. He gives Lex a not quite awkward little wave goodbye and Jonathan stands from the couch. Bruce looks at him and to anyone else he might look perfectly calm but Jonathan can see that his eyes are just a fraction too wide because he wasn’t expecting to be left alone now, with someone he doesn’t know, answering these questions about how he’s been and how he’s doing, about the future. What Bruce thinks he needs is for Jonathan to say something reassuring, to squeeze his shoulder, smile. What Jonathan does is pick up his jacket and move for the door because what Bruce _really_ needs is practice. Jonathan is 90% sure that he’ll be absolutely fine and if he’s not, they’ll weather that particular storm on his return.

“I don’t understand what you’re doing,” Lex says as they wait for the elevator. 

“There’s surprisingly little to understand,” Jonathan replies. They step inside; Lex hits the button for the lobby. “Can’t I do something pleasant for a friend of a friend?”

Lex chuckles at this, seeing the irony in Jonathan’s question. They both know they’re not friends, after all.

The restaurant is only three blocks away but that’s not where they go. Jonathan slips into the passenger side of Lex’s dented silver Ferrari and Lex leaves Bruce’s building behind, driving with surprising restraint for a man who has crashed very nearly as many expensive cars as Bruce did, once upon a time. They chit-chat and Jonathan doesn’t ask where they’re going when they pass the restaurant, doesn’t even react because he knows a reaction is what Lex wants and his own satisfaction lies precisely in not satisfying Lex. Lex pushes buttons. Lex is a master manipulator. Jonathan Crane is not immune but he certainly has a high tolerance, higher than Lex could know. 

Lex’s apartment is no grander than Bruce’s but if there’s one thing Jonathan can say, it’s that it’s higher up. The elevator’s climb seems almost too long, vertiginous, higher and higher until they step out into Lex’s penthouse with its smooth black tiles and its sweeping full length windows. Even Jonathan can place the names of a few of the artists whose paintings hang on the walls and he supposes he should be impressed but can’t quite muster the emotion. They go out onto the balcony where a waiter awaits by a table set for two. Lex is trying to score points now because of his little Clark experiment. Jonathan will let him, though the notion rankles. 

“It’s quite a view,” Jonathan says, but he’s not looking over the edge. He’s looking at Lex. 

Lex dismisses the waiter and he serves them both a glass of that damned expensive water himself. 

“Don’t play games with me, Jonathan.”

“Never.”

Lex laughs. “ _Always_.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Do _you_ trust _me_?”

“Touché.”

Jonathan takes a sip of his water as he looks at Lex. Lex does the same, his actions a mirror image.

“I want you to trust me, Lex,” Jonathan says as he sets down his water, as he looks away just for a second, letting his gaze flit over the the view from Lex’s perch there above Metropolis. He’s not smiling, just purses his lips ever so slightly before he looks back across the table at his host, his employer, at Lex Luthor who’s perhaps the only worthy adversary he’s ever known. He knows how this looks, like he’s taking a chance, taking a leap, like he’s let down his guard; Lex won’t know if he can’t trust the seeming vulnerability in Jonathan’s movements and expression, in his tone, or if this is just another gambit, but Jonathan is convincing. He’s very convincing. 

“Why?”

“Because I know what you want.”

“And what’s that?”

Jonathan pauses for a moment. Lex looks quite genuinely intrigued, if guarded. Then Jonathan sits up a little straighter and brings one hand up over his heart, holding Lex’s gaze as he does so. 

“Mr President,” he says. 

Lex doesn’t deny it because in that moment they both know it’s true. Lex doesn’t ask him how he knows because he knows he won’t tell. He just takes another sip of his water as he considers his next move, because what Jonathan has done is outside the tacitly accepted parameters of their acquaintance, has stepped beyond boundaries and revealed to him that Jonathan does, in fact, know one of his most closely-guarded secrets. Lex is exposed and that is not a position to which he is accustomed. There aren’t even rumours that he’s going to run, not yet, and the implication is there in Jonathan’s knowledge that he knows what Lex is planning to do to secure the presidency. What he’s planning to do with Jonathan’s research.

It’s a dangerous game because they both know now that Jonathan could bring him down if he wanted to, albeit with a little luck and a lot of ingenuity. Jonathan thinks Lex might kill to avoid that. Wheels turn and Lex rests his hands flat on the tablecloth as he watches him steadily.

“And if I trust you?” Lex asks.

“If you trust me,” Jonathan says, “I’ll give you the country.”

***

Jonathan thinks that inside Lex Luthor’s confidence is a strange place indeed for him to find himself, and all it’s taken to get there is a few carefully calculated risks.

Clark’s interview had gone well when they returned to Bruce’s apartment and the pair were eating popcorn on the couch in front of the enormous flatscreen TV that had barely even been turned on previously. Jonathan knew Bruce hated the television, unexpected sounds and jumping images tugging on his already frayed nerves in ways he preferred to avoid unless necessary, but he was putting on a virtually miraculous display of normalcy then for Lex’s good friend. It actually did seem that Bruce might have _liked_ Clark, in a way, and over the couple of weeks that followed it became quite clear to Jonathan exactly why that was; Clark was eminently likeable. But Clark, just like the rest of them, was quite clearly hiding something. Of course, Jonathan added Clark’s secret to his long list of private information to divine. 

Three days later, Jonathan invited Clark back to the apartment. It was the weekend, Saturday morning when Clark came again, not that Bruce told the time by anything other than Jonathan’s appearance in or disappearance from the apartment. He left Bruce with Clark on the couch in the lounge and introduced the two of them to Bruce’s new gaming console before he left for the morning. Bruce would slowly acclimatise to Jonathan leaving him alone and Clark, it seemed, was as open and trustworthy a companion as Jonathan could ever have chosen for him. 

Clark was there again the following day and again two days after that, the two of them playing rather violent video games on the huge television or swimming in the pool outside on the balcony where Bruce so rarely ever ventures without Jonathan. Clark’s figure was quite striking and Jonathan could see at least one reason behind Lex’s interest in him right there as he pulled himself dripping out of the pool in a swimsuit he’d borrowed from Bruce. Lex’s friend was all sculpted muscle and tan and easy smiles. Lex’s tastes seem to vary but it was very easy to see the attraction in Clark.

Of course, Lex has other interests in Clark, and that has become more than apparent each time Jonathan sees them together. He suspects Lex hasn’t realised his actions are quite so telling. 

The following weekend Jonathan set up a further little test, for Bruce and of course for Lex; he called Lex’s office on his private line and arranged for the four of them to have lunch out on Lex’s balcony, then spent three nights prepping Bruce for the reality of leaving the apartment for the first time in just over six months. Lex sent a limousine and Jonathan was grateful for the darkly tinted windows as they made their way the surprisingly few blocks to Lex’s building, one hand resting on Bruce’s thigh to steady him. It was a calculated risk as they stepped out of the car and walked through the lobby to the elevator. It was a calculated risk as they stepped out of the elevator and into Lex’s apartment. It was a calculated risk as he let Lex see them together there in the entranceway, Bruce’s forehead resting down against his, Jonathan’s hand at the nape of Bruce’s neck. Lex had probably suspected but Jonathan was now letting him have proof.

“You’re sleeping with him,” Lex said, perhaps two hours later, after a leisurely lunch. His tone was conversational; Jonathan was sure he thought he was scoring a point with this revelation and reminded himself not to make the correction. Lex needed to think he was winning.

Bruce was inside with Clark, playing a game on the console that Lex had told him he’d bought for Clark and for which he’d then confessed a mild personal addiction with a comically rueful glance at his thumbs. Jonathan and Lex had remained outside, sipping from glasses of Lex’s favourite wine that Jonathan didn’t find pleasing but would drink to humour Lex. Clark doesn’t drink and alcohol is unwise to mix with Bruce’s medication; they watched them through the sliding glass doors that they’d closed behind them, Jonathan reminded by the game just how young all four of them were and not only Clark the college student. Bruce was holding up well, but Lex wasn’t looking at Bruce. He was watching Clark as he laughed there on the couch with Bruce, all wide-eyed innocence that apparently Lex finds so very close to irresistible. Jonathan, of course, knows that Clark has not the faintest notion of Lex’s attraction, Lex’s desire for that strange innocence and openness in him so far removed from his own character. Clark probably even thinks Lex is good.

“Yes,” he replied, simply, starkly, and glanced at Lex. Lex nodded. Perhaps he didn’t approve but he didn’t precisely disapprove, perhaps because he has no way yet to know that Jonathan’s primary use of sex is as a weapon.

Of course, Bruce’s state couldn’t last, as Jonathan had known it couldn’t. Slowly, his reactions became more angular, less restrained, the muscles through his shoulders tensing. He needed to be home, needed to leave, and Jonathan knew it but remained there on the balcony with Lex as he watched it becoming ever more apparent. Bruce froze mid-game. He set down the control pad and he closed his eyes. Clark looked at Bruce and Bruce bit his lip hard enough that a trickle of blood snaked down over his chin. Clark’s panicked look toward the balcony through the window was what finally brought Jonathan inside. 

It was yet another calculated risk, showing Clark what he’d shown Lex, showing the journalism student a particularly juicy piece of society gossip, but he went down on his knees in front of Bruce there on the couch. He rested his hands on the denim stretched over Bruce’s thighs and Bruce screwed his eyes shut, his breath coming just a fraction too quickly; Jonathan produced a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped away the blood from Bruce’s chin, hushed him quietly, made him open his eyes to look at him, made him lean forward so he could take his face in his hands, knowing how odd it must look to Clark for the large, physical man that Bruce was to break down this way. He stood and eased Bruce up with him, let Bruce wrap his arms around him tightly as his pulse slowed.They kissed, Bruce’s hands pressed flat to the small of Jonathan’s back before they parted and Bruce sighed out a breath, calming. 

“Thanks, Jonathan,” he said. Jonathan squeezed his shoulder and removed himself from the room to make his goodbyes to Lex as Bruce sat back down on the couch. Bruce had not a single notion that what they were doing could be cause for any surprise, of course, another new fact of public propriety that Jonathan would shortly have to teach him. 

“It’s okay,” Clark said, later, as they were leaving, trying to allay Jonathan’s supposed fears but so awkward in his stance and his expression that Jonathan found it almost amusing. “I get it.” 

Jonathan thanked him, clapping him on the bicep as he did so. Clark blushed. There was another secret in that blush and Jonathan _did_ find that amusing. Clark had enjoyed watching them. This is something he can work with, he thinks, quite a fortunate discovery indeed.

Lex has taken the whole affair very well, Jonathan thinks. Lex has started to believe in him, which was of course all a part of the plan from the very beginning. They sit together on Lex’s balcony now; Jonathan came here from the lab with news about his work and Lex is pleased with this, pleased enough to pour two glasses of a very expensive scotch into similarly expensive glasses and hand one to Jonathan as they lean against the balcony wall and look out over the city in the orange-pink glow of sunset. They’re not friends, they’ve never been friends, but Lex has started to trust him, made that leap from guarded suspicion to a measure of belief in him that Jonathan finds tantalising. Lex clearly feels everything is going to plan. Jonathan is biding his time to disabuse him of this notion.

Four days ago, Jonathan found out Clark is Superman. He can’t wait to tell Lex and see what it does to him.

***

Clark is in the apartment when Jonathan arrives home. 

This is far from an unusual occurrence of late and Jonathan can’t say that he minds, precisely; Clark is pleasant, polite, accommodating almost to a fault, and blushes red across his cheekbones and the tips of his ears every time Jonathan enters the room. He knows Clark’s thinking about him, wondering about him, in a way that makes Clark just a little uncomfortable around the edges though Jonathan finds it all hopelessly amusing. He’s been teasing him for the past two weeks with seemingly innocent touches, smiles, an apparent openness and ease and trust that he knows Clark feels he’s lacking with Lex sometimes, because he is. Jonathan knows he’s taking advantage of him. He also knows he doesn’t care.

When he saw Superman on the news two weeks ago, purely by chance, he saw him move a certain way, heard a lilt in his voice, heard a turn of phrase that niggled at the back of his brain and made the observer in him, the darkest things in him, start to wonder. He started to watch more closely. 

There have been hints in the way Clark moves when he thinks no one’s watching, his awkwardness shifting into something fluid and aware when his height and the bulk of him no longer seem like an encumbrance and Clark Kent finally relaxes. But when he saw Clark _not_ slice himself with a knife in the kitchen while helping himself to a sandwich one bright afternoon, he could have rolled his eyes with the undeniability of it. Clark wasn’t as careful as he thought he was when he thought no one was looking, or maybe he just let his guard down a little because of the trust he felt for Bruce and his lover. He should have known better, however, because either way the outcome was that Clark’s secret identity was far from a secret to Jonathan Crane.

Today, he burned down the lab and Superman came running. Flying. Jonathan spluttered, artistically soot-stained but otherwise unharmed there as the flames brought down his Lexcorp laboratory. The lab’s destruction had always been a necessity but it was always nice to kill two birds with one stone; Superman’s red boots touched down in the parking lot amongst the crowds of evacuated scientists and lab technicians in their filthy white coats and his blue eyes met Jonathan’s. Beneath his superhuman air of confidence, Superman cracked just a fraction. Jonathan saw it as he walked toward him. 

He remembers the look on Clark’s face as he shook his hand and thanked him for saving his workers’ lives. He remembers how relieved Clark seemed to be to lift off from the parking lot and leave the firefighters to the work that he’d completed for them almost entirely. And now, as Jonathan steps in through the front door of the home he shares with Bruce, Clark is there. 

Jonathan puts down his briefcase by the door as he always does; his office in the admin wing was unaffected by the blaze, though his lab was burned right down to the ground. No one’s told Bruce about what’s happened because Jonathan told them not to, honestly unsure what the news would actually do to him for now, and Clark is there looking at him from the couch. Jonathan has covered his tracks so well that he doubts even Superman could find them, doubts even Lex could. And Clark is _looking_ at him, as he crosses the room and presses a quick kiss to Bruce’s temple over the back of the couch. Bruce is comfortable with the intimacy of it but Clark is not.

He excuses himself to change and Clark meanders after him a few moments later, knocks on the bedroom door that he’s left ajar quite on purpose. 

“Come in,” Jonathan calls, and so Clark comes in, finding Jonathan part of the way out of his suit. His jacket is hanging from the closet door, his shirt and socks discarded in the laundry hamper. He turns to look at Clark who’s blushing. Of course he’s blushing.

“I just…” Clark says, flexing his hands in air as he speaks, awkward. Jonathan tilts his head then he removes his glasses and looks at him. Clark removes his own and it’s like an entire disguise is lifted, an entire personality. He seems instantly bigger and somewhat bolder but for all that he’s Superman, can leap tall buildings in a single bound, move mountains, _fly_ , he’s still nervous. Jonathan nods. 

“It’s okay,” Jonathan says. “I get it.”

Clark sighs in relief. “You won’t tell?”

“Of course not.”

 

“Not even Lex?”

“Not even Lex.” Which is so much a lie it’s the very antithesis of truth. Clark, however, does not notice this in the slightest.

“And you’re not scared?”

 

Jonathan laughs. He crosses the room in quick barefoot strides and he reaches up to Clark’s not inconsiderable height to pat him on one blushing cheek as if that’s meant to reassure him that no, he’s not scared. Then he pauses there, Clark’s eyes wide, the smiles fading from both their faces as Jonathan’s thumb traces the line of Clark’s cheekbone almost like it’s an accident, like he didn’t mean it to happen very precisely and very purposefully. Clark swallows. The tip Jonathan’s tongue darts out to moisten his lips. Clark’s almost holding his breath in anticipation. But then Jonathan steps back.

“I’ll be finished in a couple of minutes,” Jonathan says as he turns his back. 

Clark takes a long, unsteady breath. “Thanks,” he says, confused, but he means it. 

He rejoins them in the lounge but only for a moment; he’s changed into another suit and they look up at him at the exact same moment, expecting sweats and a tshirt, both frowning the same frown almost comically. 

“I think we should go out for dinner,” he says. They’re surprised but they don’t disagree.

Of course, Jonathan knows that Lex will have a suit ready for Clark in anticipation of just such an occasion and he’s not reluctant to admit it when Jonathan calls. He comes over, carrying it inside a cover that looks almost as expensive as any suit Jonathan used to wear at Arkham though his tastes have been allowed a little more leeway since his arrival in Metropolis, and Clark and Bruce change while Lex and Jonathan chit-chat by the door, both of them scrolling through pages of email on their PDAs as they do so. 

Clark looks awkward throughout dinner, clearly not used to dressing up though the suit does fit him perfectly. Bruce looks relaxed though Jonathan knows it’s a façade, but his suit does also fit him perfectly despite the year or more it’s been now since he last had occasion to wear it. Of course, Jonathan has certain other plans as regards dress where Bruce is concerned, but they’re noticeable there in the crowded restaurant in their expensive attire, the centre of attention and not only because Bruce Wayne being spotted out in public is still very big news, even if there have been photographs in the tabloids almost every day for the last two weeks since he started to jog with Clark and a cohort of bodyguards in the evening, finally leaving the treadmill for the outside world. Lex keeps on glancing at Clark, apparently satisfied with the cut of the suit. Jonathan is watching. Lex has long since ceased to be guarded around him, entirely to Lex’s detriment. 

“I’m sorry about earlier,” Clark says when they leave, as Lex talks to Bruce as they await Lex’s limousine. Bruce is doing very well. Jonathan thinks he might finally be ready for what will come next.

Jonathan smiles. “Don’t be sorry,” he says. “Be prepared.” 

He doesn’t tell him what for and Clark doesn’t get the chance to ask as the limousine arrives as if on cue. Jonathan knows what those words must be doing to him all the way back to Bruce’s apartment, wheels turning as he tries desperately not to look questioningly in Jonathan’s direction and potentially arouse Lex’s curiosity. He fails. Lex’s curiosity is piqued, which is why he agrees to come up to the apartment instead of vanishing back to his own when Jonathan knows he’s so busy with his own plans now.

They’re all quiet in the elevator on the way upstairs. Jonathan can feel Bruce’s pulse quickening as he slips one hand around his wrist, just out of sight, reassuring. He shifts slightly closer, slipping one arm over Bruce’s back to rest against his opposite hip, making Bruce turn his head to look at him questioningly. They’ve had a conversation about proximity in public and this is going to confuse him but he’ll need to confuse him sooner or later just to test his limits and so Jonathan gives him a small nod that says yes, it’s fine, it’s perfectly fine. So Bruce turns, quickly, pushes Jonathan back against the side of the elevator just a little roughly and presses up against him, using his bulk the way Jonathan’s taught him, dropping his mouth to the side of Jonathan’s neck just above his collar. Jonathan, well, Jonathan looks at Clark and Lex looking at them. Lex looks amused. Clark’s eyes are like saucers. 

Jonathan extricates himself as the elevator comes to a stop; he unlocks the door and they go inside, Bruce’s hand at the small of his back as they do so. Lex and Clark follow close behind and Lex takes a moment to lock the door behind them with Jonathan’s key while Clark tries very hard, endearingly hard, not to look like he feels like he’s stepped into the Twilight Zone. 

“Take a seat, Clark,” Jonathan tells him, gesturing to one of the two large leather couches, and so after a moment Clark does as he’s told. Jonathan looks at him for a moment then returns his attention to Bruce, pushing him solidly in the centre of his chest and sending him down onto the couch. Bruce laughs and it’s a thrilling sound because for a moment he sounds _free_. For a moment, he doesn’t sound scared at all. 

He straddles Bruce’s thighs there on the couch. They kiss, hard, as Bruce pushes Jonathan’s jacket back and off over his shoulders until Jonathan leans back, pulls it off, tosses it aside though he’d still very much like to find a hanger for it instead. They kiss again, Bruce’s hands at the small of Jonathan’s back until he pulls back to remove his glasses and set them aside because if there’s one thing he’s not going to do it’s toss his glasses onto the floor. Then he turns as he sits there, still astride Bruce’s thighs, his face faintly flushed. 

“Lex,” he says, “Come here.”

Lex, after a moment’s consideration, not quite hesitation, does just that. 

They’re not friends, which perhaps makes it less jarring than it might have been when Lex’s hands move over his shoulders from where he’s standing there behind Jonathan, when Lex lets one palm curve around to settle over Jonathan’s throat above the knot of his tie. Jonathan’s watching Bruce for his reaction and it’s at least moderately positive, his hands still resting there at Jonathan’s hips as he watches Lex stoop and press his mouth to the pulse in Jonathan’s neck. Jonathan shifts to press a quick kiss to Bruce’s forehead and then he leans back against Lex, lets Lex guide him up off the couch and turn him to him. 

Lex’s look is predatory. Jonathan flashes him a toothy smile to match that look before they kiss, stepping in close as Lex’s hands tangle in Jonathan’s hair and Jonathan takes two handfuls of the lapels of Lex’s jacket. Clark’s watching, still blushing but he quite obviously can’t take his eyes off the two of them. Bruce is watching, too, and Jonathan is fairly sure that he’ll be fine with the situation at hand but he glances back at him hotly, checking; Bruce is, he finds, enjoying the show with a smile. 

Lex unties Jonathan’s tie and tosses it to the floor before he pulls off his own jacket and adds that to the growing pile that Jonathan thinks might just be a little difficult to sort once they’re done, whenever they’re done. Jonathan tugs at Lex’s tie, finding he likes the feel of the silk and supposes it might come in handy later, depending on the particular course that the evening takes. Then they’re kissing again, hot and hard, Jonathan acutely aware of Clark’s gaze on them all the while. He looks over at him, sees that he’s riveted, almost rooted to the couch, and there’s an unmistakable bulge to the lower half of his well-tailored suit. He probably wishes he could stop watching. He probably wishes he could leave. He’ll do neither. 

Lex’s hands go to the belt at Jonathan’s waist and unbuckle it deftly. He lets him do it, lets him unbutton his pants, watches as he goes down on his knees on the hard floor in the middle of Bruce’s lounge, custom-cobbled shoes scraping against tile, and looks up at him as he hooks his fingers into Jonathan’s pants, under his underwear. Jonathan doesn’t protest and so he pulls them down over his slim hips, eases them over his erection and Jonathan can almost hear Clark squeak in surprise where he’s sitting across the room. Apparently he didn’t expect things to go so far and so he’ll have more surprises yet to come, Jonathan thinks. Lex runs the tip of one finger up over the underside of Jonathan’s cock and Jonathan laughs breathlessly. When Lex takes him into his mouth, his laughter stops abruptly.

He’s holding his shirt out of Lex’s way with one hand and has the other resting at the back of Lex’s bizarrely attractive bald head. And he looks at Clark, with his cock in Lex’s mouth, and Clark’s eyes flicker up from Lex’s mouth to Jonathan’s eyes. Clark’s breath hitches. Jonathan beckons to him. 

“Come here, Clark,” he says, his tone steadier than he’d expected. Clark does exactly as he’s told, perhaps a fraction too quickly, perhaps forgetting himself. And this time Jonathan _does_ kiss him, doesn’t dismiss him, drags him down quite willingly to press his mouth to his as Lex pulls back from Jonathan’s cock and looks up at them. Jonathan knows what Lex is thinking because for once Lex’s intentions are obvious to all concerned. So he makes light work of the buckle of Clark’s belt and he turns to Clark to shove his pants and underwear down to mid-thigh, watching his erection spring free. Lex is still on his knees. He doesn’t have far to move to skim his hands up over Clark’s thighs, to wrap one hand around the base of Clark’s cock and take him into his mouth. Clark actually moans out loud. Jonathan, to his surprise, finds his own body reacts quite positively to that. 

Jonathan steps around behind Clark then, presses up to his back and lets his hands snake around over his chest. He eases him out of his jacket, unties his tie there from behind, starts to pluck at the buttons of his shirt until they’re all undone and he can slip the shirt back and off over his broad shoulders. He runs his hands down Clark’s muscular chest, over his hips and back, fingertips brushing lightly at the cleft of his ass before he follows that same path with the head of his cock. Clark shuffles his legs a little wider apart and Jonathan is perfectly sure that could he see his face Clark would be a particularly fetching shade of bright tomato red at the way he’s just invited Jonathan to rub the head of his cock against the tight ring of muscle he finds there. 

He won’t go any further that this with Clark, of course. Jonathan steps away after a long, teasing moment, pulls up his pants so he can make his way to a drawer at the other side of the room from which he pulls a bottle of lubricant and he sets it on the table in easy reach of Lex’s hands. Then he settles himself back down on the couch next to Bruce, slips one hand between Bruce’s thighs to stroke not quite absently over the fabric of his pants, and he watches. 

Lex pulls back, just long enough to find the bottle Jonathan left for him on the table and coat the fingers of one hand as he turns his head to glance at Jonathan with an expression of dark amusement. Then he takes Clark back into his mouth as his fingers stray back over Clark’s hip, fingertips teasing between his cheeks. Jonathan can tell the precise moment Lex’s fingers push into Clark from the look on Clark’s face and he hitches up one leg, rests his foot, still in one expensive new shoe that Lex must have also bought for him, on the coffee table to give Lex more space to move, his hips flexing. It takes only a few more moments for Clark to come with a buck of his hips and a groan bitten off in his throat, eyes screwed shut. It’s not an uncompelling sight.

But then Lex moves, turns Clark, guides him over to the couch where he has him kneel on the cushions, leaning over the back. Lex pushes down his own underwear and slicks himself quickly, gives Jonathan another hot glance as he steps in to rub against the cleft of Clark’s ass. Clark pushes back against him and Lex pushes in; Jonathan glances at Bruce who’s still watching, whose hand has gone down to circle Jonathan’s cock and stroke lightly, slowly. They watch the pair across the room, watch as Lex flexes his hips and buries himself inside Clark, making Clark stifle moans against the back of the leather couch. They watch until Lex comes not long after, far too turned on to last. 

Clark and Lex don’t leave after. Jonathan leads them into the master bedroom where neither Bruce nor he ever sleep and they shed their remaining clothes all over the bedroom floor. It’s a huge bed, the sort that the old Bruce would probably have appreciated much more than the new Bruce because Jonathan knows he won’t be able to sleep there, at least not with anyone besides Jonathan with him. They don’t try to sleep, though they do dim the lights. Clark and Lex watch, tangled in each other, the blush still very much at Clark’s cheeks as Jonathan and Bruce put their mouths on each other, as Bruce presses Jonathan down to the mattress and pushes inside him, as Jonathan straddles Bruce’s hips and rides him slowly, as they tease each other to completion the way they’ve done a hundred times before. Jonathan can tell Clark’s hoping that one day he and Lex can know each other’s bodies the way that Jonathan and Bruce do. Lex seems to be wondering idly how he’s managed to get himself into this, what it means for the future, but that’s far from being a complaint. After all, Lex now has at least part of what he wanted. He doesn’t know that Jonathan is about to take it away. 

They settle after, Clark’s arm thrown over Lex’s stomach, drift away to sleep because there’s really no imperative to leave and leaving might bring a stab of reality with it anyway. And that’s when Jonathan slips from the bed, leading Bruce away, back into Bruce’s own dark room. 

Bruce’s room is so very close inside to the room he had back at Arkham, small, probably meant for an entirely separate purpose considering the palatial proportions of the other rooms in the apartment. The double bed takes up more than half the space there under the window with its blackout blinds that are always closed, with its neatly folded white sheets that are somehow still reminiscent of the asylum in spite of their gargantuan thread count. Bruce settles into bed as Jonathan closes the door, turns the key in the lock and leaves them there in the dark together. He’s been reducing Jack the nurse’s shifts for weeks now, and he’ll let him go tomorrow. Bruce is ready. They’ll move him into the master bedroom in the morning.

He knows the exact number of steps to the bed, his feet cold on the cold tiled floor as he moves to join him on the mattress, beneath the sheets. He wraps his arms around Bruce’s naked body, rests his forehead against his and closes his eyes. Bruce finally, slowly, oh so very slowly, begins to relax. 

“Was I convincing?” Bruce asks, his voice low in the dark as he holds Jonathan close and tight. He’s always so much more comfortable in the dark. Jonathan can’t say he blames him when the light shows him such terrors. 

“You were perfect,” Jonathan tells him, and he smiles. “We can go home soon.”

***

“That’s not true,” Lex says. “It can’t be.” 

Jonathan laughs, not cruel though that’s the well-hidden intention behind it. “Of course it’s true,” he says. “You just don’t want to believe it.”

“Bruce?”

Bruce shrugs, the expression on his face at least a little rueful. “I don’t know what to tell you, Lex,” he says. “Clark’s Superman. He’s not human.”

Lex sits. Jonathan suspects that Lex sits because if he doesn’t sit down he’ll _fall_ down, because this is no news that he’s ever expected nor news that he’s wanted to receive, at least not like this. He’s been trying to identify Superman for the past three years, since he surfaced in Metropolis in that long red cape and started to affect the running of Lex’s _other_ businesses, the ones he clearly shouldn’t have, the ones that need to be kept out of the public eye. Superman costs him money. Superman affects his bottom line, irritates him, and although Jonathan is far from sure that Clark has put two and two together and come up with Lex just yet, he _is_ sure that his naivety can’t last forever. Clark may be surprisingly trusting, far too invested in his friendship with Lex than he ought to be for someone not of this earth, like he’s spent all of his suspicion on guarding his one big secret and has nothing else to spare, but he’s far from a fool.

Jonathan sits down at Lex’s side. He supposes a real friend would rest a hand on Lex’s shoulder, would try to be comforting, but he has the excuse that they’re not quite friends even if they’re clearly more than just acquaintances. It’s just as well that he has an excuse because Jonathan does _not_ want Lex to be comforted. That would be so far from the point as to miss it entirely. 

Bruce hands Lex a glass of scotch and Lex takes it, holds it in both hands as he stares not quite blankly into it. It’s uncharacteristic of Lex to show any manner of vulnerability in front of others, Jonathan knows this, but not only are the circumstances strange but so are the particular others involved. They’ve stepped inside Lex Luthor’s line of defences and yet even so, it’s not Jonathan that hands Lex the scotch because he understands that Lex may still have at least some small, final, lingering doubts over the man who can do what Jonathan’s done for him professionally. That’s why it’s Bruce. Because Bruce is, to Lex, entirely trustworthy. He’s beyond suspicion. Jonathan has worked very hard to make him so. 

The drug works quickly. Lex’s face glazes and the glass drops to the floor at his feet, spilling on the tiles, spattering Lex’s shoes. As Jonathan removes his glasses, Bruce is fetching cleaning supplies from the kitchen because they can’t leave a trace for Lex’s intelligence to latch upon. Jonathan tucks his glasses into the breast pocket of his suit and settles a fraction closer to Lex. He leans in, one hand at the back of Lex’s neck, feels his slow, even breath on his cheek. He whispers in his ear and Lex nods slowly.

There’s a car waiting outside. It’s time for them to leave. Bruce wipes his fingerprints from the cleaning supplies he’s used and Jonathan puts his glasses back into place as Lex stirs, as his eyes focus back in on Jonathan, only blurry for a moment. 

“I’m sorry,” Jonathan says. Lex only looks disoriented for an instant longer and then Bruce hands him a fresh glass of scotch like it’s not strange at all. There’s no evidence of the first glass, after all. Lex will attribute this to the shock. “We can stay a few more days if you prefer.”

Lex shakes his head. “Go,” he says, though he does at least look as if he appreciates the offer. “I’ll take care of it myself.” 

Jonathan nods. “Of course. But should you ever require my services…”

Lex gives a brief and mirthless chuckle. “I’ll know where you are,” he says. “Gotham’s not the other side of the world.”

“And you could find me even there, I’m sure.”

He stands, and Lex stands. The two of them shake hands and Bruce comes in next, hugs Lex like they’re old friends because in a way they are. In a way.

“Keep in touch,” Bruce says, and Lex nods his agreement. Jonathan doesn’t doubt for a moment that Lex will keep in touch because there’s no way now that he could do any differently. And then, they turn to the door. Jonathan and Bruce leave together, and leave Lex broken. He’s so besotted with Clark that there was no other way for him to react.

***

It’s not a short drive and they could perhaps have flown but Bruce will have to grow accustomed to driving at some point very soon - it might as well be now. The Murcielago’s not meant for long-distance driving, is barely even meant for driving at all in Jonathan’s estimation, but he does find some small measure of irony in the fact that they’ve come so very close to full circle, from that first day in his old office after Bruce had crashed yet another car. Bruce is a very safe driver, underneath his old bravado. Of course, Bruce is not his old self at all except in glimpses, in the spaces between what Jonathan’s made him.

Lex wants to rule the country and by extension the world. Lex has ambitions that suit his station in life, and so has Jonathan. Lex has made mistakes; Jonathan hasn’t. 

The first was employing a man like Jonathan Crane to concoct a substance to alter people’s minds in quite the way that Lex wants it to. The second was thinking that if he’d created _one_ drug and given its formula and antidote over to Lex, he couldn’t or wouldn’t create another simultaneously, surreptitiously. He wonders if Lex will ever realise that slipping Jonathan’s own drug to him in those omnipresent bottles of imported water was always doomed to failure; he’d immunised himself long before he ever shared the formula with Lex, had only paused for a moment before protecting Bruce from it, too.

Lex drank the second drug, in a glass of scotch taken from an old friend. He drank the drug that Jonathan had spent all those months preparing just for him. Jonathan whispered in Lex’s ear and now Lex will not be able to refuse him even if he tries. But he won’t try. And as long as Lex leaves them to their business, Jonathan won’t have to use it against him. Perhaps they’ll even find themselves friends, to the extent that two men like they are can.

Sharing the burden of what he’s planning between Lexcorp and Wayne Enterprises should make the trail harder to follow back to Bruce. And he will not have it come back to Bruce. That’s been his objective, his goal in all of this, through all of this. He’s going to have Gotham and Bruce is going to give it to him.

Gotham City comes up on the horizon. It’s already known one masked vigilante; it’s about to know another. And he’s tailor-made him for the job.


End file.
